The field of the present invention relates to the delivery of energy impulses (and/or energy fields) to bodily tissues for therapeutic purposes. The invention relates more specifically to the use of non-invasive or minimally-invasive electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve in a patient's neck in order to treat various medical disorders, such as primary headache (e.g., migraine) or fibromyalgia.
Migraine headache is a type of primary headache, i.e., a headache that does not occur secondarily to another cause. Migraine is a highly disabling disorder, with an annual prevalence of 6-9% among men and 15-17% among women. Approximately 20-30% of migraine sufferers (migraineurs) experience an aura, ordinarily a visual aura. The aura typically lasts for 5 minutes to an hour, during which time the patient experiences sensations such as moving zig-zag flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in the hand or face. The migraine headache typically passes through the following stages: prodrome, aura, headache pain, and postdrome. All these phases do not necessarily occur, and there is not necessarily a distinct onset or end of each stage, with the possible exception of the aura. An interictal period follows the postdrome, unless the postdrome of one migraine attack overlaps the prodrome of the next migraine attack. The pain is often reported as starting in the occipital/neck regions, later becoming frontotemporal. It is throbbing and aggravated by physical effort [Bert B. VARGAS, David W. Dodick. The Face of Chronic Migraine: Epidemiology, Demographics, and Treatment Strategies. Neurol Clin 27 (2009) 467-479; Peter J. GOADSBY, Richard B. Lipton, Michel D. Ferrari. Migraine—Current understanding and treatment. N Engl J Med 346 (4, 2002): 257-270; Stephen D SILBERSTEIN. Migraine. LANCET 363 (2004):381-391].
Signs of sensory hyper-excitability often make their debut during the premonitory or prodromal phase of a migraine headache, which later accompany the headache phase. The hypersensitivity to external stimuli may manifest itself as photophobia, phonophobia, hyperosmia and cutaneous allodynia, corresponding respectively to heightened sensitivity to light, sound, odor, and touch (particularly of the scalp and face). Therefore, migraineurs often seek a dark, quiet place during the attack. In the interictal period between attacks, migraineurs also show abnormal processing of sensory information that is apparently due to dysfunctional regulation of cortical excitability [COPPOLA G, Pierelli F, Schoenen J. Is the cerebral cortex hyperexcitable or hyperresponsive in migraine? Cephalalgia 27 (2007):1427-1439; AURORA S K, Wilkinson F. The brain is hyperexcitable in migraine. Cephalalgia 27 (2007):1442-1445; COPPOLA G, Schoenen J. Cortical excitability in chronic migraine. Curr Pain Headache Rep 16 (2012):93-100; MAGIS D, Vigano A, Sava S, d'Elia T S, Schoenen J, Coppola G. Pearls and pitfalls: electrophysiology for primary headaches. Cephalalgia 33(8, 2013):526-539].
Pharmacological administration of triptans is currently the most effective treatment for acute migraine headaches (Sumatriptan, Zolmitriptan, Naratriptan, Rizatriptan, Eletriptan, Almotriptan, and Frovatriptan). However, only 30-40% of migraineurs are pain-free two hours after the administration of triptans. Of those who do respond, one in three will experience a migraine recurrence within 24 hours. Furthermore, because triptans constrict cranial blood vessels through activation of serotonin 5-HT1B receptors, as a side effect they may also cause vasoconstriction of coronary vessels. Switching to a different triptan might benefit some non-responders, but for many such migraineurs, non-migraine-specific rescue drugs that have significant side effects may be the last and potentially ineffective option (opioids, neuroleptics, and/or corticosteroids). Accordingly, migraine treatment methods are needed that are more effective than triptan pharmaceuticals but that do not exhibit significant side effects. Furthermore, more effective treatment methods are needed to reduce the likelihood that a migraine attack will occur [Stephen D Silberstein. Migraine. Lancet 363 (2004):381-391; Peter J GOADSBY, Till Sprenger. Current practice and future directions in the prevention and acute management of migraine. Lancet Neurol 9 (2010): 285-98; Joel R. SAPER, Alvin E. Lake III, Philip A. Bain, et al. A Practice Guide for Continuous Opioid Therapy for Refractory Daily Headache: Patient Selection, Physician Requirements, and Treatment Monitoring. Headache 50 (2010): 1175-1193].
Non-pharmacological treatments of migraine headaches have a long history, as an alternative or complement to treatment with drugs. Such non-parmacological treatments include behavioral therapy, physical treatments such as massage, phototherapy, acupuncture, greater occipital nerve blockade and trigger point injections, electrical stimulation with implanted electrodes in lieu of occipital or auriculotemporal nerve blockade, magnetic stimulation just below the occipital bone, and surgery [Peter J. KOEHLER and Christopher J. Boes. A history of non-drug treatment in headache, particularly migraine. Brain 133 (2010): 2489-2500].
Another non-pharmacological treatment that is particularly relevant to the present invention is the electrical stimulation of the migraineur's vagus nerve. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) was developed initially for the treatment of partial onset epilepsy and was subsequently developed for the treatment of depression and other disorders. The left vagus nerve is ordinarily stimulated at a location within the neck by first implanting an electrode about the vagus nerve during open neck surgery and by then connecting the electrode to an electrical stimulator circuit (a pulse generator). The pulse generator is ordinarily implanted subcutaneously within a pocket that is created at some distance from the electrode, which is usually in the left infraclavicular region of the chest. A lead is then tunneled subcutaneously to connect the electrode assembly and pulse generator. The patient's stimulation protocol is then programmed using a device (a programmer) that communicates with the pulse generator, with the objective of selecting electrical stimulation parameters that best treat the patient's condition (pulse frequency, stimulation amplitude, pulse width, etc.) [U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,254 entitled Neurocybernetic prosthesis, to ZABARA; U.S. Pat. No. 6,341,236 entitled Vagal nerve stimulation techniques for treatment of epileptic seizures, to OSORIO et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,569 entitled Treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders by nerve stimulation, to WERNICKE et al; G. C. ALBERT, C. M. Cook, F. S. Prato, A. W. Thomas. Deep brain stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation and transcranial stimulation: An overview of stimulation parameters and neurotransmitter release. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 33 (2009):1042-1060; GROVES D A, Brown V J. Vagal nerve stimulation: a review of its applications and potential mechanisms that mediate its clinical effects. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 29 (2005):493-500; Reese TERRY, Jr. Vagus nerve stimulation: a proven therapy for treatment of epilepsy strives to improve efficacy and expand applications. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2009; 2009:4631-4634; Timothy B. MAPSTONE. Vagus nerve stimulation: current concepts. Neurosurg Focus 25 (3, 2008):E9, pp. 1-4; ANDREWS, R. J. Neuromodulation. I. Techniques-deep brain stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 993 (2003):1-13; LABINER, D. M., Ahern, G. L. Vagus nerve stimulation therapy in depression and epilepsy: therapeutic parameter settings. Acta. Neurol. Scand. 115 (2007):23-33; AMAR, A. P., Levy, M. L., Liu, C. Y., Apuzzo, M. L. J. Vagus nerve stimulation. Proceedings of the IEEE 96(7, 2008):1142-1151; BEEKWILDER JP, Beems T. Overview of the clinical applications of vagus nerve stimulation. J Clin Neurophysiol 27(2, 2010):130-138; CLANCY J A, Deuchars S A, Deuchars J. The wonders of the Wanderer. Exp Physiol 98(1, 2013):38-45].
Unlike conventional vagus nerve stimulation, which involves the surgical implantation of electrodes about the vagus nerve, in its preferred embodiment the present use of vagus nerve stimulation is non-invasive. Non-invasive procedures are distinguished from invasive procedures (including minimally invasive procedures) in that the invasive procedures insert a substance or device into or through the skin (or other surface of the body, such as a wound bed) or into an internal body cavity beyond a body orifice. For example, transcutaneous electrical stimulation of a nerve is non-invasive because it involves attaching electrodes to the skin, or otherwise stimulating at or beyond the surface of the skin or using a form-fitting conductive garment, without breaking the skin [Thierry KELLER and Andreas Kuhn. Electrodes for transcutaneous (surface) electrical stimulation. Journal of Automatic Control, University of Belgrade 18(2, 2008):35-45; Mark R. PRAUSNITZ. The effects of electric current applied to skin: A review for transdermal drug delivery. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews 18 (1996) 395-425].
The present invention differs in several respects from previously disclosed applications of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) to treat migraine headaches. In particular, only invasive VNS had been reported prior to Applicant's commonly assigned, co-pending patent applications concerning the use of noninvasive VNS to treat migraine headache [application Ser. No. 13/109,250, Publication US20110230701, entitled Electrical and magnetic stimulators used to treat migraine/sinus headache and comorbid disorders, to SIMON et al. and application Ser. No. 13/183,721, Publication US 20110276107, entitled Electrical and magnetic stimulators used to treat migraine/sinus headache, rhinitis, sinusitis, rhinosinusitis, and comorbid disorders, to SIMON et al. (which are hereby incorporated by reference)]. Furthermore, the parameters of stimulation that had been used previously are different than the parameters that are disclosed here [R M SADLER, R A Purdy & S Rahey. Vagal nerve stimulation aborts migraine in patient with intractable epilepsy. Cephalalgia 22 (2002), 482-484; E. Daniela HORD, M. Steven Evans, Sajjad Mueed, Bola Adamolekun, and Dean K. Naritoku. The Effect of Vagus Nerve Stimulation on Migraines. The Journal of Pain 4 (9, 2003): 530-534; Duncan A. GROVES, Verity J. Brown. Vagal nerve stimulation: a review of its applications and potential mechanisms that mediate its clinical effects. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 29 (2005) 493-500; A MAUSKOP. Vagus nerve stimulation relieves chronic refractory migraine and cluster headaches. Cephalalgia 25 (2005):82-86; M E LENAERTS, K J Oommen, J R Couch & V Skaggs. Can vagus nerve stimulation help migraine? Cephalalgia 28 (2008), 392-395; Alberto Proietti CECCHINI, Eliana Mea and Vincenzo Tullo, Marcella Curone, Angelo Franzini, Giovanni Broggi, Mario Savino, Gennaro Bussone, Massimo Leone. Vagus nerve stimulation in drug-resistant daily chronic migraine with depression: preliminary data. Neurol Sci 30 (Suppl 1, 2009):S101-S104; A. MAY and T.P. Jürgens. Therapeutic neuromodulation in primary headache syndromes (Therapeutische Neuromodulation bei primären Kopfschmerzsyndromen). Nervenarzt 2010: doi_10.1007/s00115-010-3170-x; Patent application US20050216070, entitled Method and system for providing therapy for migraine/chronic headache by providing electrical pulses to vagus nerve(s), to Boveja et al.].
The present invention also differs from earlier applications of VNS to treat migraine headache in that it relies on the measurement of evoked potentials to select parameters for the electrical stimulation and to test whether a particular patient is a suitable candidate for treatment using VNS. Evoked potentials are physiological voltage differences, ordinarily measured on the patient's scalp, that are evoked by the patient's experience of an event (event-related potentials). The scalp-recorded evoked potentials arise from ionic currents within neural networks of the patient's brain that are responses to the event. Most commonly (and in the present invention), the event that evokes the potential is a brief sensory stimulus that is deliberately applied to the patient. Examples of such stimuli are a flash of light, an audio click, or an electrical shock that is applied to the patient's skin [William R. GOFF. Human average evoked potentials: procedures for stimulating and recording. Chapter 3, pp. 101-156 in: Bioelectric Recording Techniques. Part B. Electroencephalography and Human Brain Potentials (Richard F. Thompson and Michale M. Patterson, eds). New York: Academic Press, 1974; David REGAN. Human Brain Electrophysiology. Evoked potentials and evoked magnetic fields in science and medicine. New York: Elsevier Science Publishing Co., 1989, pp. 1-672; Terence W. PICTON, Otavio G. Lins and Michael Scherg. The recording and analysis of event-related potentials. Chapter 1 (pp. 3-73) in Handbook of Neuropsychology, Vol. 10 (F. Boller and J. Grafman, eds). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V., 1995; Monica FABIANI, Gabriele Gratton and Michael G. H. Coles. Event Related Potentials. Methods, Theory, and Applications. Chapter 3, pp. 53-84 In: John T. Cacioppo, Louis G. Tassinary and Gary G. Berntson (eds). Handbook of Psychophysiology, 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Steven J. LUCK. An introduction to event-related potentials and their neural origins. Chapter 1 (pp. 1-50) in: Steven J. LUCK. An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005; Todd C. HANDY (ed). Event-related Potentials: A Methods Handbook. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005, pp. 1-380; Steven J LUCK and Emily S Kappenman, eds. Oxford handbook of event-related potential components. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 1-626].
It was noted above that migraineurs exhibit sensory hyper-excitability during the premonitory or prodromal phase of a migraine headache, as well as during the headache phase itself. The hypersensitivity to external stimuli may manifest itself as photophobia, phonophobia, hyperosmia and cutaneous allodynia, corresponding respectively to heightened sensitivity to light, sound, odor, and touch (particularly of the scalp and face). For many years, evoked potential measurements have been performed on migraineurs in order to quantify abnormalities in the way in which they process sensory information. They may exhibit unusual evoked potential waveforms in response to a particular sensory stimulus, but the most striking aspect of the migraineur's processing of sensory information is that their evoked potentials often do not habituate in the same manner as normal individuals. Habituation is an adaptive process in which evoked potentials decrease in amplitude when a sensory stimulus is presented to an individual over an extended period of time [MEGELA A L, Teyler T J. Habituation and the human evoked potential. J Comp Physiol Psychol 93(6, 1979):1154-1170]. Whereas normal individuals may gradually reduce their response to repeated sensory stimuli, as evidenced by the magnitude of the corresponding evoked potential as a function of time, the migraineur may maintain a constant (or even increased) responsiveness to the stimulus over a prolonged period of time [AMBROSINI A, de Noordhout A M, Sándor P S, Schoenen J. Electrophysiological studies in migraine: a comprehensive review of their interest and limitations. Cephalalgia 23 (Suppl 1, 2003):13-31; M VALERIANI, M de Tommaso, D Restuccia, D Le Pera, M Guido, G D lannetti, G Libro, A Truini, G Di Trapani, F Puca, P Tonali, G Cruccu. Reduced habituation to experimental pain in migraine patients: a CO(2) laser evoked potential study. Pain 105(1-2, 2003):57-64; AMBROSINI A, Schoenen J. Electrophysiological response patterns of primary sensory cortices in migraine. J Headache Pain 7(6, 2006):377-388; COPPOLA G, Vandenheede M, Di Clemente L, Ambrosini A, Fumal A, De Pasqua V, Schoenen J. Somatosensory evoked high-frequency oscillations reflecting thalamo-cortical activity are decreased in migraine patients between attacks. Brain 128(Pt 1, 2005):98-103; COPPOLA G, Pierelli F, Schoenen J. Habituation and migraine. Neurobiol Learn Mem 92(2, 2009):249-259; COPPOLA G, lacovelli E, Bracaglia M, Serrao M, Di Lorenzo C, Pierelli F. Electrophysiological correlates of episodic migraine chronification: evidence for thalamic involvement. J Headache Pain 14(1, 2013):76, pp. 1-8; de TOMMASO M, Lo Sito L, Di Fruscolo O, Sardaro M, Pia Prudenzano M, Lamberti P, Livrea P. Lack of habituation of nociceptive evoked responses and pain sensitivity during migraine attack. Clin Neurophysiol 116(6, 2005):1254-1264; Neelam VANEY, Abhinav Dixit, Tandra Ghosh, Ravi Gupta, M. S. Bhatia. Habituation of event related potentials: a tool for assessment of cognition in headache patients. Delhi Psychiatry Journal 11 (1, 2008):48-51].
Accordingly, it is one objective of the present invention to treat migraineurs with non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation in such a way that their evoked potentials habituate, so as to more nearly resemble normal individuals in that regard. Another objective of the invention is to test the migraineurs acutely with vagus nerve stimulation and then predict the likelihood that they will respond to noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation over an extended period of time, in such a way that the frequency and severity of chronic migraine attacks decreases. Attempts to increase the habituation of evoked potentials to sensory stimuli have been made using drugs, but not with vagus nerve stimulation [DICLEMENTE L, Puledda F, Biasiotta A, Viganó A, Vicenzini E, Truini A, Cruccu G, Di Piero V. Topiramate modulates habituation in migraine: evidences from nociceptive responses elicited by laser evoked potentials. J Headache Pain 14(1, 2013):25, pp. 1-8]. Also, chronic invasive vagus nerve stimulation has been described as affecting the location of some peaks and troughs in certain evoked potentials of epileptic patients, but it has not been disclosed that noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation can affect the habituation of evoked potentials, particularly in those of migraineurs [NARITOKU DK, Morales A, Pencek T L, Winkler D. Chronic vagus nerve stimulation increases the latency of the thalamocortical somatosensory evoked potential. Pacing Clin Electrophysiol 15(10 Pt 2, 1992)1572-1578].
The present invention may also be used to treat patients suffering from fibromyalgia, which like migraine headache and other primary headaches, involves pain that is associated with abnormalities in the processing of sensory signals. Unlike migraineurs, fibromyalgia sufferers experience significant muscle pain, stiffness, and muscle fatigue as one of their primary complaints, which might be attributable to an over-sensitization of nociceptors that are located in muscle or other deep tissues [ARNOLD LM. The pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of fibromyalgia. Psychiatr Clin North Am 33(2, 2010):375-408; CLAUW D J, Arnold L M, McCarberg B H. The science of fibromyalgia. Mayo Clin Proc 86(9, 2011):907-911; CLAUW D J. Fibromyalgia: an overview. Am J Med 122(12 Suppl, 2009):S3-S13; Laurence A. BRADLEY. Pathophysiology of Fibromyalgia. Am J Med 122(12 Suppl, 2009): S22; VIERCK, C. J. A mechanism-based approach to prevention of and therapy for fibromyalgia. Pain Research and Treatment, Article ID 951354 (2012), pp. 1-11].
In the United States, three medications are frequently used to treat fibromyalgia: pregabalin, duloxetine, and milnacipran, which act differently to influence transmission of sensory signals via central nociceptive pathways [ARNOLD LM, Clauw DJ, Dunegan LJ, Turk D C; et al. A framework for fibromyalgia management for primary care providers. Mayo Clin Proc 87(5, 2012):488-496; Jennifer FITZGIBBONS. The truth about fibromyalgia will help you help patients ease their pain. American Nurse Today 2(9, 2007):40-45]. However, there is a great deal of trial and error in designing fibromyalgia treatment because of the heterogeneous symptoms of the patients, so combination therapies are common. As an alternative or complement to the use of medication, noninvasive electrical stimulation of the patient has also been used to treat fibromyalgia patients, involving the application of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to the patient's spine and leg [DAILEY D L, Rakel B A, Vance CG, Liebano R E, Amrit A S, Bush H M, Lee K S, Lee J E, Sluka K A. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation reduces pain, fatigue and hyperalgesia while restoring central inhibition in primary fibromyalgia. Pain 154(11, 2013):2554-2562]. Cervical vagus nerve stimulation has also been used to treat fibromyalgia, but this has only involved the use of invasive stimulation, not the noninvasive stimulation that is disclosed here. Furthermore, that work does not involve the measurement of evoked potentials [LANGE G, Janal M N, Maniker A, Fitzgibbons J, Fobler M, Cook D, Natelson BH. Safety and efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation in fibromyalgia: a phase I/II proof of concept trial. Pain Med 12(9, 2011):1406-1413; U.S. Pat. No. 8,457,748, entitled Vagus Nerve Stimulation for the Treatment of Fibromyalgia to Gudrun LANGE]. The occipital nerve has also been stimulated electrically to treat fibromyalgia, but this too has not involved the use of evoked potentials [PLAZIER M, Dekelver I, Vanneste S, Stassijns G, Menovsky T, Thimineur M, De Ridder D. Occipital Nerve Stimulation in Fibromyalgia: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Pilot Study With a Six-Month Follow-Up. Neuromodulation. 2013 Oct. 7, pp. 1-8]. U.S. Pat. No. 8,428,719, entitled Systems and Methods for Respiratory-Gated Auricular Vagal Afferent Nerve Stimulation, to NAPADOW, also discloses treatment of fibromyalgia (among other diseases) by a noninvasive method, but that disclosure only involves the stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve (not the cervical vagus nerve), and it too does not involve the measurement of evoked potentials.
It has been known for many years that some individuals have unusual voluntary control over visceral functions, serving as apparent exceptions to the general rule that control of visceral organs is autonomous and non-voluntary. For example, some individuals are able to voluntarily increase their heart rate at will [HF WEST and WE Savage. Voluntary acceleration of the heart beat. Archives of Internal Medicine 22 (1918):290-295; John T. KING, Jr. An instance of voluntary acceleration of the pulse. Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp. 31 (1920): 303-305; H FEIL, HD Green, D Eiber. Voluntary acceleration of heart in a subject showing the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome: clinical, physiologic, and pharmacologic studies. Am Heart J. 34(3, 1947):334-348].
It is conceivable that the rare individuals who can voluntarily control autonomic functions such as heart rate, eye-pupil diameters, piloerection (“goose bumps” or cutis anserina), etc., do so via direct neural connections between the portions of the brain involved in volition and the central autonomic nervous system that connects to efferent visceral and motor nerves [LINDSLEY, D. B. and Sassaman, W. H. Autonomic activity and brain potentials associated with ‘voluntary’ control of the pilomotors. Journal of Neurophysiology 1 (1938):342-349]. However, it is more plausible that the visceral control may be indirect, through voluntary muscular control that also affects the viscera, or through voluntary control over the circuits of the brain affecting emotions, which in turn affect the autonomic state of the viscera during fear, anger, pain, joy, etc., or by otherwise taking advantage of classically acquired (Pavlovian) conditional reflexes [Joseph E. LEDOUX. Emotion circuits of the brain. Annu Rev Neurosci 23 (2000):155-184; KREIBIG SD. Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: a review. Biol Psychol 84 (3, 2010):394-421; CRITCHLEY HD. Neural mechanisms of autonomic, affective, and cognitive integration. J Comp Neurol 493(1, 2005):154-166; DWORKIN BR, Dworkin S. Learning of physiological responses: II. Classical conditioning of the baroreflex. Behav Neurosci 109(6, 1995): 1119-1136].
In the early 1960s, several publications suggested that most individuals could learn to voluntarily control autonomic functions, such as heart rate, vasoconstriction, salivation, intestinal contraction, and galvanic skin response, but they did not address the issue of direct versus indirect voluntary control [H. D. KIMMEL. Instrumental conditioning of autonomically mediated behavior. Psychological Bulletin 67 (1967):337-345; H. D. KIMMEL. Instrumental conditioning of autonomically mediated responses in human beings. American Psychologist 29(5, 1974):325-335]. A landmark publication in 1969 by MILLER had a profound influence on work concerning whether the viscera could be controlled directly and voluntarily [Neal E MILLER. Learning of visceral and glandular responses. Science 163(3866, 1969):434-445]. That publication described the use of operant conditioning (also known as instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning) to train animals to control their heart rate and other visceral functions. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning (Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of voluntary behavior, through the use of reinforcement and punishment. Whereas Pavlovian responses are involuntarily reflexive and involve stimulus events that precede the learned response, in contrast, during operant conditioning, the reinforcement or punishment follows the learned response that is performed voluntarily. In the experiments by MILLER and colleagues, animals were temporarily paralyzed with curare and were mechanically ventilated, in order to eliminate the possibility that muscular contraction was responsible for the purported learned ability to voluntarily change heart rate and other visceral physiological variables that were investigated.
The results that were described by MILLER had broad implications and spawned a great deal of related work by other investigators over the following two decades, particularly work that is described below as the use of biofeedback [Neal E. MILLER. Biofeedback and visceral learning. Ann. Rev. Psychol. 29 (1978):373-404]. However, his experimental results were eventually determined to be irreproducible and were retracted, and the conduct of the assistant who performed much of the actual laboratory work became suspect before he committed suicide [Barry R. DWORKIN and Neal E. Miller. Failure to replicate visceral learning in the acute curarized rat preparation. Behavioral Neuroscience 100(3, 1986):299-314; Marion NOTT. Are the claims true? The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Fla.) Oct. 3, 1977, page 11]. Despite the still-frequent citation of the work that MILLER has long since retracted, there is currently no credible evidence that any mammal can directly and voluntarily control visceral autonomic functions, such as heart rate. In fact, it is thought that the direct, voluntary control of visceral autonomic functions is not possible in principle, unless it were to be accompanied by the adaptation of internal bodily sensors that operate largely below the level of consciousness (interoceptors, see below) [Barry R. DWORKIN. Learning and Physiological Regulation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, Chapter 8, pp. 162-185]. However, as described above, voluntary control over the viscera might be exerted indirectly via skeletal muscles or through voluntary modulation of an individual's emotional state. With this in mind, one objective of the present invention is to teach methods and devices that actually enable most individuals to directly and voluntarily control visceral autonomic functions, with or without simultaneous indirect voluntary control via skeletal muscle or emotion.
One explanation for our inability to voluntarily control visceral function is that the conscious mind cannot generally sense the state of the viscera, so one would have little conscious basis for directing voluntary visceral control, even if control over efferent nerves modulating activity of the end organs could be voluntarily exercised. In fact, the body contains many types of internal sensors (interoceptors) that operate largely below the level of consciousness, including baroreceptors and mechanoceptors, chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors, and osmoreceptors. Sensors located in skeletal muscles, ligaments, and bursae (proprioceptors) sense information related to muscle strain, location and orientation. Sensors that respond to painful stimuli (nociceptors) may be like other interoceptors, except that they generally have a small diameter (A-delta and C fibers) and convey signals to the central nervous system with a high frequency of discharge only after a threshold in the stimulus has been exceeded. In contrast to other peripheral sensors, nociceptors also do a poor job of discriminating the location of the stimulus, and they convey their signals via a special anterolateral route up the spinal cord to the thalamus. To the extent that one is conscious of the state of the viscera, e.g., during painful internal stimuli (stomach ache, angina pectoris, etc.), that awareness appears to result from interoceptive representation that first reaches the thalamus and eventually resides in the brain's right anterior insula, working in conjunction with the adjoining frontal operculum and the anterior cingulate cortex [Dieter VAITL. Interoception. Biological Psychology 42 (1996):1-27; CRITCHLEY HD, Wiens S, Rotshtein P, Ohman A, Dolan RJ. Neural systems supporting interoceptive awareness. Nat Neurosci 7(2, 2004):189-195; CRAIG, A. D. How do you feel? Introception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nat. Rev. Neurosci 3 (2002):655-666; CRAIG AD. How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nat Rev Neurosci 10(1, 2009):59-70].
In order to make an individual artificially conscious of the otherwise unperceived state of an internal organ, investigators may electrically transduce a physiological signal, then use the magnitude of that signal to generate a proportionate signal that may be sensed by one of the individual's external senses. The generated signal is ordinarily an audio or visual representation of the magnitude of the transduced physiological signal. However, the generated signal may also be directed to another exteroceptive sense, e.g., using electrical stimulation, tactile stimulation with vibration or pressure, thermal stimulation, or olfactory stimulation. The individual whose physiological signal is being transduced may then voluntarily respond mentally to the magnitude of the generated signal. To the extent that the individual learns to control his or her body in such a way as to voluntarily modulate the value of the transduced physiological signal, then the patient is said to have learned to perform biofeedback.
According to rules of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “a biofeedback device is an instrument that provides a visual or auditory signal corresponding to the status of one or more of a patient's physiological parameters (e.g., brain alpha wave activity, muscle activity, skin temperature, etc.) so that the patient can control voluntarily these physiological parameters . . . . ” [21 CFR 882.5050—Biofeedback device]. The individual will not necessarily be able to understand or explain how the voluntary control over the physiological signal has been achieved. Such biofeedback may also be considered to be a form of instrumental operant learning, in which the reward to the individual is the satisfaction of being able to voluntarily control the transduced physiological signal [Frank ANDRASIK and Amanda O. Lords. Biofeedback. Chapter 7, pp. 189-214 In: Lynda W. Freeman, ed. Mosby's Complementary & Alternative Medicine A Research-based Approach. St. Louis, Mo.: Mosby Elsevier, 2009; John V. BASMAJIAN. Biofeedback—Principles and Practices for Clinicians, 3rd Edn. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1989 pp 1-396; Mark S. SCHWARTZ (ed). Biofeedback. A Practitioner's Guide (2nd. Ed). New York: Guilford Press, 1995. pp 1-908].
Biofeedback methods and devices have been used in an attempt to manage many medical conditions, including migraine headache and fibromyalgia. Some such methods involve relaxation of muscles using electromyographic (EMG) biofeedback to counteract factors that contribute to the onset of symptoms. Other methods use biofeedback involving EEG or other physiological signals [William J. MULLALLY, Kathryn Hall M S, and Richard Goldstein. Efficacy of Biofeedback in the Treatment of Migraine and Tension Type Headaches. Pain Physician 12 (2009):1005-1011; STOKES DA, Lappin M S. Neurofeedback and biofeedback with 37 migraineurs: a clinical outcome study. Behav Brain Funct 6 (2010):9, pp. 1-10; Yvonne NESTORIUC, Alexandra Martin, Winfried Rief, Frank Andrasik. Biofeedback Treatment for Headache Disorders: A Comprehensive Efficacy Review. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 33 (2008):125-140; BABU A S, Mathew E, Danda D, Prakash H. Management of patients with fibromyalgia using biofeedback: a randomized control trial. Indian J Med Sci 61(8, 2007):455-461; CARO XJ, Winter EF. EEG biofeedback treatment improves certain attention and somatic symptoms in fibromyalgia: a pilot study. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 36(3, 2011):193-200]. One objective of the present invention is to treat headaches and fibromyalgia using improved biofeedback mechanisms by making use of evoked potentials that are evoked by the stimulation of the vagus nerve.